|
Potentially, Elvis Costello's Taking Liberties (Columbia JC-36839) and Supertramp's double live Paris (A&M SP-6702) are two of the most commercially viable items in the advancing wave of pre-holiday releases. Both should make marvelous Christmas presents. They're not essential, but they're ever so nice to have around.
In both cases, the albums tie up loose ends. Costello's collection — B-sides, English album tracks and songs rejected from his previous American LPs, 20 in all — is designed to reflect the spirit of the 20-song Get Happy! Supertramp's 10-months-gone French concert tapes are a belated souvenir of the highly successful Breakfast in America tour, which saw the group emerge as superstars.
Costello's apocrypha is most valuable as a footnote to his four previous albums. The countryish "Radio Sweetheart," B-side of an early Stiff Records single, obviously wasn't hard-edged enough to compliment the early Costello image. "Girls Talk" doesn't have the power or focus of other This Year's Model tunes. Van McCoy's "Getting Mighty Crowded" is either an early experiment for the rich send-up in Get Happy! or else it's extra baggage. For songs like that, a few more explanatory notes would be helpful. Or maybe recording dates.
Nonetheless, Taking Liberties has its revelations. Who'd ever think Costello would sing "My Funny Valentine?" Costello with and without The Attractions is a study in textural contrasts. And there are several items that many fans will be grateful for having access to, first-rate pieces like "Talking in the Dark," "Stranger in the House," "(I Don't Want to Go to) Chelsea" and "Crawling to the U.S.A." In all, Taking Liberties sums up a bunch of random interests one might not have suspected in Costello. It's like discovering that one of your friends has a secret passion for pistachios.
| 
